Abstract
When charting the history of an event like the 1963 March on Washington, one inevitably finds varying origin narratives. For instance, David Halberstam’s (1998) The Children describes how James Bevel and his comrades in Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) believed the March was his idea, as he suggested it to Dr. Martin Luther King earlier that year (pp. 443, 455). Yet, William P. Jones’s (2013) The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights gives a richly detailed narrative of the origin story accepted by most historians, focusing on the leadership of A. Philip Randolph and the relationship between civil rights and labor activism. In a clear voice that can engage the scholar and the casual reader, Jones uncovers a more complex notion of the March, including but not limited to Dr. King’s “I Have Dream Speech.”
In chapter 1, The March on Washington begins with a thorough account of Randolph’s early career, including his leadership of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, beginning in the mid-1920s. Jones then describes the 1930s and 1940s social activism of Randolph and the National Negro Congress, a collation of “nearly 600 civil, religious, and labor organizations” that aimed to address political and economic inequality (Jones, 2013, pp. 18, 20). These efforts culminated in a planned 1941 March on Washington to pressure President Franklin D. Roosevelt to end discrimination in the armed forces and defense industries. A week before the planned March, Roosevelt issued an executive order addressing fair employment in defense jobs and Randolph called off the demonstration (Jones, 2013, p. 38). Thus begins Jones’s narrative of the eventual March in 1963.
Continuing to describe the often overlooked precursors to the 1950s and 1960s black freedom struggle, chapter 2 explores the March on Washington Movement, a coalition of groups like Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Urban League, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), which organized to ensure Roosevelt’s order was enforced and to advance civil rights causes during the 1940s. Chapter 3 moves into the “classic phase” of the civil rights movement, from the Brown v. Board decision to the events leading up to the 1963 March. Jones covers Brown with some depth and gives a thorough retelling of the Montgomery Bus Boycott; but other major civil rights events are given scant coverage or not mentioned at all, creating a spotty and uneven account.
Jones goes on to give strong scholarship throughout the remainder of the book, providing a thorough narrative that challenges popular descriptions of the 1960s. Chapter 4 details how Randolph and other black trade unionists played key roles in supporting the Southern civil rights movement. For instance, when Dr. King called for a Prayer Pilgrimage at the Lincoln Memorial on the third anniversary of Brown, Cleveland Robinson, a New York labor leader, “committed to bringing 1,000 union members to Washington” (Jones, 2013, p. 129). In addition, by 1962, the Negro American Labor Council was raising money for voter registration in the South (Jones, 2013, pp. 152-153). This account of cooperation between labor and civil rights groups is a valuable expansion of the conventional framing of 1950s and 1960s Black activism, which divorces the Southern struggle from the rest of the nation.
Building off this narrative of collaboration, chapter 5 explains the March itself as emerging from this crucial partnership. Contrary to popular perceptions, Jones shows that the March was not organized by Dr. King, but was led by Randolph, his assistant Bayard Rustin, and many other longtime trade unionists. Jones also provides rich description of the planning and logistics of the March, widespread fears that the March would end in violence, and prominent participants. In the last chapter, Jones recounts the organizing and politicking in the immediate aftermath of the March that produced the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Clearly, the book’s strength is its discussion of the interconnections between organized labor and civil rights. Moreover, one finds in-depth coverage of the ties between Randolph’s 1940s activism and the eventual March in 1963. Outside of those strong points, Jones puts forth two other arguments that are less than persuasive. First, Jones argues that the 1963 March is too often dismissed by historians as a “moderate exception to a radical ‘long civil rights movement’” (Jones, 2013, p. xiii). Here, Jones is objecting to scholars like Manning Marable (2007) who criticized the March as a “festive affair” (pp. 71-72). Without question, it is important to recognize the socialist roots and expansion vision that motivated the March, but as Jones acknowledges the more radical dimensions of the event were minimized by moderate civil rights groups as the planning unfolded. One clear example was how SNCC chairman, John Lewis, was forced to moderate his speech (Jones, 2013, pp. 193-194). Thus, the characterization of the 1963 March as moderate is a valid description.
The March on Washington also defends the practice of writing civil rights history with a focus on well-known leaders (Jones, 2013, p. xvii). While historians like Charles Payne (1995) have critiqued this “top-down” approach as “normative history” that reifies social hierarchy (p. 420), Jones insists that, at least in this case, this is an appropriate method because the beliefs and actions of the leaders reflected the sentiments of their followers. Jones states, “Perhaps the most important evidence of agreement between leaders and marchers was simply the fact that so many people traveled . . . to be in Washington that day” (Jones, 2013, p. xviii). This is unconvincing, given that the “followers” could have variety motivations to participate as did the “leaders” (Halberstam, 1998, p. 452). Leader-centered narratives have value but given our national tendency to frame history through normative, male figureheads, there is an added importance for scholarship on ordinary people.
These criticisms aside, Jones does a great service by reminding his readers that the March called for jobs and freedom—a broad range of social reforms including rights to public accommodations, housing, employment, and voting. Moreover, the protest called for “a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers—Negro and white—on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages” (Jones, 2013, p. x). Thus, Jones helps us recollect the March’s varied dimensions and unionist values.